New telecoms feature planned

New telecoms feature planned

JAKARTA (JP): New technology and services are among the major growth areas of the telecommunications industry's future. Companies are competing to provide facilities like value-added services and information technology, including electronic data interchanges and multimedia services, Internet content and access services.

One of the features introduced by telecommunications companies, mainly fixed-line telephone operators, is caller identification, which allows subscribers to know the number of a caller.

In other countries, like in Britain and the Netherlands, the caller identification service was introduced several years ago, but the state-owned PT Telkom is about to introduce the facility later this year.

Account manager of Telkom's Jakarta office, Edi Marwoto, said that Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) cellular operators introduced the caller identification facility several years ago.

"This is not so innovative but it is new for the fixed line," he said.

He said that the facility is an optional value-added service, therefore, no government regulation was needed.

He said that Telkom Jakarta office had set a plan to apply the service later this year.

"For the time being, we can only apply the service in five centrals out of 156 telecommunications centrals (STO) in the greater Jakarta area," he said.

Telkom Jakarta includes the five areas in the capital (Central, West, East, North and South) as well as Bogor, Cariu Serang and Tangerang in West Java and Bekasi and Kerawang in East Jakarta, with a total of 2.18 million lines.

Marwoto said that the first five areas in Jakarta to enjoy the caller identification service would include Ancol (640 and 641 prefixes), Cilincing (440 and 441), Kota I (690, 691, 692 and 693), Kedoya (580, 581 and 583) and Slipi (560 and 569).

So far, through a selective offering, residents in the five areas had shown great demand, he said.

"There are already 100,000 requests but we only plan to introduce the service by next month," he said.

He said that there would be an evaluation before the service was formally introduced in the greater Jakarta area.

"We need time to install new software to support the service in all STOs," he said.

He said that Telkom was also likely to introduce the service in East Java. Domestic telecommunications networks in the greater Jakarta area and East Java are operated and managed by Telkom, while five other areas in Indonesia -- Sumatra, West Java, Central Java, Kalimantan and Indonesia's eastern part -- are managed and operated by private firms.

Lawrence Tjandra of PT Ariawest International, said that his company, which manages telecommunications in West Java, would also introduced the caller identification service later this year.

Marwoto said that subscribers interested in having the service would need to apply to a nearest Telkom customer care service office.

"The tariff will be about Rp 25,000 for application and activation. The monthly fee will be about Rp 10,000," he said.

He said that subscribers would have to use special telephone sets with displays which were approved by the Directorate General of Post and Telecommunications.

"Not any brand with display are compatible with the service. People must be very careful with this," he said.

He admitted that there have been several advertisements in some newspapers about the service which might make the public confused.

A company bordering North and Central Jakarta advertised that it had the authority to sell special devices made in China and special telephone sets made in Surabaya, East Java, applicable for the caller identification service.

The company owner, Anes, said that the devices made in China cost Rp 650,000 each, while the domestic product cost Rp 287,500.

He said that the first device was small, about the size of a walkman, and had a memory of 99 incoming and unanswered calls, while the second one only had a memory for 31 calls.

"The prices include paper service to Telkom. So, subscribers do not need to go to the customer service office themselves," Anes said.

He said that scores of people called his office everyday asking for the service.

"I have to inform them that the service is not applicable in some areas yet," he said.

Another company in West Jakarta markets American products, which cost Rp 600,000 each.

An executive of the company, Mulyanto, said that each product had a memory capacity of 50 numbers and had a one-year guarantee.

Caller identity will be a new value-added services offered by Telkom, which has already introduced five facilities, including call waiting, conference, call abbreviation and voice mail.

It is essential to provide new value-added services for fixed- line subscribers amid sharp competition in the high technology information era.

Caller identification may be a simple technology compared to the complicated services and businesses of future services in communications, which include data, voice or video transmission, telecast services, video conference, the Internet and global mobile services.

Marwoto said that by subscribing to the service, users would be able to know who was calling them before picking up the phone.

To some extent, mystery calls (nuisance or obscene calls) would drop since people will think twice about their act because their phone numbers will be displayed at the receiving terminals; unless they make the call from a public phone.

However, in the Netherlands, people have the choice to turn on and off the caller identification service.

On behalf of KPN Telecoms, Laurens Bulters of PT Telkomsel, said that people wanting to annoy others could still do so as they could block their number from identification.

He said the caller identification service won great public reaction when introduced about six months ago.

In other services, the expansive Internet facilities now allow people to make international and long distance calls using local telephone rates.

The service, however, needs several devices, including a personal computer and Internet access as well as other additional devices.

Safwan Natanagara of the state-owned PT Indosat said the new service would not affect the company's business because the number of Internet users in Indonesia was still low.

Indosat is the primary provider of international telecommunications services in Indonesia, holding an estimated market share of approximately 87 percent of total international paid minutes for all calls from fixed telephone lines and cellular telephones as of last year.

Indosat was slightly affected by callback services several years ago. Callback services take advantage of cheaper call rates from other nations beyond the originating countries where the calls are made. The rates are usually cheaper than in many nations. Indonesian banned the provision and use of callback services in 1994. But later Indosat bought 20 percent of Global Link, a callback service provider.